Searching for Professional Significance

Before you proceed, grab a pen and paper and take a moment to do this quick exercise: Write the name of the best leader, teacher, or coach you’ve ever had. Write the name of the individual who made a difference in your life, who seemed to care more about you than you cared about yourself.

You’ll find that if you’re over 40, you are able to name at least one person, and often two or more. Typically, one of these individuals is a former boss. If you’re younger than 40, however, you may come up with one name, but it’s rarely someone with whom you’ve worked; you name an athletic coach or a high school teacher. Having administered this exercise to executives of many types and ages in recent years, I can tell you that this is almost always how the answers skew.

We have a vicious cycle operating in many organizations. Senior leaders blame the young MBAs for being naive and entitled, and assume that the younger generation arrives at the company with “negative” attitudes intact. These younger employees, however, form this attitude only because they are in desperate need of someone who cares about them, who communicates that they matter, who lets them know they make a difference. They don’t need positive feedback when it isn’t deserved. What they need are managers and leaders who are aware that they want to feel significant and who make the effort to communicate this fact in small as well as big ways.

I’m not absolving you of responsibility for finding your own significance in a career or a job. No matter whether you’re a young, middle-aged, or older professional, if you’re driven to achieve, you also need to be driven to find your place in a work setting. You can’t depend on an organization to make a concerted and consistent effort to imbue your work with meaning.

Recognize that the challenges of finding significance are in part based on your age, in part on your social motives and values, in part on your mental makeup (e.g., are you in the midst of divorce or other life crisis?), in part on your work situation (e.g., a massive downsizing or culture change), and in part, on management’s approach to this issue. While you can’t control some of these factors, you can control your response to them.

You need to define and redefine what type of work you want to do, what type of organization and culture you want to be part of, and what goals you want to strive for. And you need to do this regularly, since what’s significant now might not be as significant a year from now. For some of you, working for the leading organization in your field may be of prime significance. For others, working in a smaller, closer-knit culture is what matters.

Finally, if you want to increase the odds that your organization will help you find significance in your work, look for the modern equivalent of the apprenticeship model. Seek work in companies where young people, those new to an organization, and even some veteran employees starting out on new jobs and tasks essentially serve as apprentices to “master craftsmen.” This entails a lot of learning on the job — following senior people around, asking questions, being questioned, trying, failing, and then succeeding. Apprentices naturally feel significant, since their master is responsible for them and their education. They receive continuous feedback, their learning and progress is monitored, and when they are ready, they are promoted into positions of responsibility. In this way, they achieve significance.

You want to find an organization where senior people enjoy mentoring rather than resent the time required and billable hours lost. You want to work for a company where your learning and growth is valued, where you are treated as distinct individual rather than a replaceable part. Finding this type of company is more challenging today than years ago, but it’s worth the effort, since finding it will go a long way in helping you find the significance you seek.

Thomas J. DeLong is the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Management Practice in the Organizational Behavior area at Harvard Business School and the author of Flying Without a Net. His research focuses on the challenges facing individuals and organizations in the process of change.

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